


Breaks

by Penknife



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 07:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17300285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: There's probably nowhere to go from here but up. Set during ESB.





	Breaks

They get out of Cloud City by the skin of their teeth. Leia's friend Luke lets himself be ordered back into his bunk as soon as they're in hyperspace, and as soon as he stops making what's obviously a heroic effort to stay conscious, he passes out, which is probably a relief. Lando isn't under the illusion that the Falcon's first aid supplies are sufficient for treating traumatic amputation, but there's no closer safe haven than the rebels' rendezvous point, so he figures a tourniquet and stimulants to ward off shock are just going to have to do.

Leia is probably also not all right by the generally accepted definition of the word, but the simmering anger she radiates makes it clear that any attempts at apologies or offers of assistance of any kind will not be well received right now. He's had one person try to murder him already today, not counting everybody who's shot in his general direction. His day isn't going to be improved by inviting another attempt at homicide.

And there is almost nowhere for this day to go but up. Chewbacca appears to have accepted that if he lets Lando stay in the cockpit, Leia will be free to take care of Luke, but he is not exactly a friendly conversational partner right now. Lando's friends will be scattering in a dozen different directions, those who got away. He tells himself that the ones in the most danger, the ones who were wanted by the Empire or former slaves with no legal right to their own bodies, would have made the most effort to get away. But he can't help picturing the people who will just disappear, when the Imperial garrison moves in, the droids sold off or reprogrammed or scrapped, his beautiful city--

He can't afford to think like that right now. Right now he's alive, Han's friends are alive, even Han is alive -- taken, but taken isn't dead, and he's starting to think ahead already, to consider strategy and next moves. They've got the Falcon, and that's something, even if she looks more than ever like a floating garbage heap, the sweetest and most unprepossessing ship in the galaxy. Sitting at her controls still takes him back, although the heavy smell of machine oil and somebody's several-days-ago breakfast lingering in the cockpit spoils the illusion. 

It's on the tip of his tongue to ask Chewie if Han ever cleans anything, and he bites the words back in just in time. He's angry at himself for forgetting even for a moment that they aren't on teasing terms right now, but then he's angry at himself for a lot of things. He doesn't like the person he's been since Vader showed up on Bespin. He can't take back anything he's done. 

If he believed the universe dispensed immediate justice, it would explain why he's now lost everything he was trying to save, with the exception of his life. All he has is the clothes on his back and the few credits in his pockets. He figures his off-world accounts are being frozen as he speaks, although there might be a little money in some shadier locations that he can get to eventually. He had two separate stashes on Cloud City, for emergencies -- he hasn't let himself get comfortable enough in the role of respectable businessman to dispense with contingency plans -- but one was in his yacht, and the other was in his quarters, and when things started to go bad, he couldn't get to either one. It's tempting to see that as what he deserves.

But he doesn't believe in that kind of justice. Lady Luck doesn't hand out rewards or punishments, only opportunities and bad breaks. And everything since Vader showed up has been one bad break after another. There's something about the man that makes it hard to look him in the face, the sense of something viscerally wrong, like staring into the event horizon of a black hole and wondering what shape you'd end up if you were crushed inside it. He can't explain that feeling, but then he can't explain a lot of things that have happened in the last few days. That's the least of his problems. 

It occurs to him eventually that the last meal he can remember eating was the previous day, that he hasn't actually slept since Vader arrived, and that if he doesn't want to start hitting the medical-grade stimulants himself, food and caffeine had better enter the picture. "You want something to eat?" he asks Chewbacca, who doesn't protest as Lando slips out from behind the controls, but growls a denial that he's hungry.

Lando doubts that, and goes to make kaf and heat up something out of the Falcon's rations. The selection isn't inspiring, having been clearly picked over during a long trip at sublight. The whole galley area does show signs of having been cleaned in recent memory, which is not consistent with Han's general approach to housekeeping. The result of eventually running out of more interesting maintenance to do while crawling along at sublight? An attempt to impress the lady, or at least not actively repel her? This isn't a mystery he needs to solve, but he can't turn off the part of his head that tries to figure out how other people work. 

He brings Chewie food and kaf, which Chewie doesn't actually turn down once they're in front of him, and takes his own meal into the lounge. The kaf is truly terrible, and he regrets not having resupplied the Falcon, but somehow that got away from him, what with one thing and another.

The lounge seats are beat-up and bleached white, the walls scuffed, the same smell of machine oil lingering in the air. There's nothing here to call up old times, sitting here drinking appreciably better kaf while L3 complained that he spent too much money on consumables and that this was an example of how organics prioritized their own selfish desires over more practical considerations. Nothing except, apparently, his own masochistic desire to revisit the past. Or possibly the fact that right now he could really use a friend.

What he gets is Leia Organa, coming into the lounge with her own cup of steaming hot -- he's just going to go with 'beverage," he has no idea what he's actually drinking from the taste. "How's Luke?" he asks, the only line of conversation that seems unlikely to immediately crash and burn.

"Stable, I think. I've done what I know how to do, but he's going to need real medical treatment as fast as he can get it."

"We're on our way," Lando says. She narrows her lips, as if suspecting that he could make the ship go faster if he tried. Then her expression turns into something less sharp, he thinks less out of genuine forgiveness than because she can't stand not speaking to him right this second, because it will leave her with no one to talk to. "We're going to find Han," he says.

" _We're_ going to find Han," she says, clearly excluding him from that plan.

He spreads his hands, granting her point for now. "All right, you're going to find Han." He thinks they'll need him for this. He has contacts the Rebel Alliance probably doesn't, and he's more subtle about asking questions than Chewbacca has ever been. But he might as well wait for them to do that math on their own. 

"Assuming Boba Fett hasn't disintegrated him already," Leia says. She makes the words a slap in the face, not a plea for reassurance, but he thinks he has the measure of her now. That doesn't mean she's doesn't want reassurance. This, at least, he can do.

"He won't," he says, cradling the cup. At least it's warm. "Boba Fett insisted he needed Han alive, and no bounty hunter wants to bring a target in alive unless he's being paid extra for it. Jabba doesn't want proof of disintegration, he wants to make an example of Han as a prisoner."

"Or a slave," Leia says, frowning into her own cup.

"We're not going to let that happen." She lets the "we" pass this time without argument. He doesn't add that they probably can't find him fast enough to prevent unpleasant things from happening, or that eventually, Jabba will get bored with demonstrating what happens to smugglers who don't pay their debts. He expects she can do that math, too. They're going to have to do this carefully and quickly. He's seen enough to convince him that she can act fast when she needs to. Whether she can be careful, he doesn't know yet. Han's taste in women has always been questionable. 

"Now you care," she says, but there's less heat behind the words, and anyway, this he deserves.

"I was trying to protect my people," he says. He doesn't expect that to help, but he can see from her expression that it does, a little. That she understands. 

He'd really like to tell himself that if their positions had been reversed, Han would have done the same to him, but he doesn't believe it. Han would have tipped him off even if it got them both killed. Han trusted him. He didn't really realize how much until he saw Han's expression when he realized he'd been betrayed.

He doesn't think the woman in front of him would have done the same thing, either. He's known her for all of two days, but all the same he thinks he has her measure that much, with the same certainty he feels sometimes sizing someone up across the gaming table. She's dangerous, but there's nothing calculating about her. There are things she wouldn't sacrifice for any cause. That may be an indication that Han's taste is looking up. 

"This kaf is really terrible," he says.

That wins a twitch of her lips. "I'm starting to like it," she says.

Lando puts his feet up on the battered lounge seat and lets himself close his eyes, just for a moment. He's not going to sleep, just taking a little time to catch his breath.

When he opens his eyes, he's aware that more than a little time has passed even before he feels the ship drop out of hyperspace. He stands up and assembles himself to the best of his ability, which under the circumstances is more a mental effort than a sartorial one. It's time to meet the Rebel Alliance. With any luck, he is not about to make the acquaintance of more people who will immediately try to kill him. 

It's unlikely that this day is going to be as bad as the previous one. There's that, he tells himself. Whatever happens next, it'll probably be an improvement. There's a comfort in that, the one set of favorable odds he has. He's probably not going to get any more prepared to make this entrance, so he heads up to the cockpit to watch the Falcon dock and find out what, precisely, the day is going to bring.


End file.
